There's this Saying about Curiosity
by skyflyte12
Summary: "You should be dead!" the old woman that had healed her after almost killing her days earlier shouted hysterically. Holly pouted. What was it about people and proclaiming her Imminent Doom? HP/Naruto, fem!Harry
1. Chapter 1

=The Arrival=

Chapter 1

**«×φ×»**

"Aww crap!" The mumbled words were highlighted by the dull sound of a body hitting the ground and the tell-tale snapping of twigs and crunching of vegetation that came when one crashed to the ground in the middle of a forest.

The newly arrived girl that had been the originator of all the noise seemed to sink further into the ground, the only sign of life being the one attempt to bang her head in frustration only to meet something harder than grass – the root of a tree that she had managed to miss on her first ill-fated pirouette through the inter-dimensional portal.

She groaned and stiffly brought a hand up to rub the freshly forming bump adorning her forehead.

Bloody Hell. What idiot decided that it would be a good idea for her to jump through that portal thingy again?

Oh yeah. She did.

Nuts.

The only thing _worse_ than actually doing something so incredibly _stupid_ and _Gryffindor-ish _(interchangeable words in her mind) as that was to realise that you had no one other than yourself to blame, which wasn't half as fun (or satisfying) as being able to curse other people to the bottom of the ninth circle of Hell while you're scrambling about trying to figure out just how in the world you were going to pull yourself _out_ of said mess.

"Nuh-oooo, I just _couldn't_ listen to reason…" She muttered sarcastically and self-depreciatingly under her breath while pulling herself stiffly and haltingly up into a sitting position.

Her eyes flickered around as she continued in the sarcastic drawl, this time obviously repeating and mocking something she herself had said; "No, Hermione. I _want_ to do this. It'll be_ fine. _No need to do more research."

Taking in the trees around her – which made the Forbidden Forest look like a kiddie's play park – she shifted forward a bit to put weight on her hands and managed to kneel on the ground, limbs extremely tense from the 'journey'. Her voice continued in the same mocking tune, _"_No, Ronald. Hell, after all I've been through it'll be a_ vacation_."

She let out a small grunt of exertion as she put a hand on a near-by trunk and used the leverage to pull herself up on her feet, swaying a little as blood rushed to her head and black spots danced across her vision and she felt light-headed. Here she paused for a second to blink the spots out before continuing, having built up a diatribe and her voice rose to a shout, "After all, _WHAT_ _COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG_?!_"_

The hand on the trunk tightened so fingernails dug into the wood, probably giving her splinters, her brain noted absently.

Blazing emerald eyes slid shut and the girl forced herself to take a few deep breaths, which helped a little with the anger at herself for this oh-so-wonderful idea. Just where the fuck did she come up with shit like this? No, scratch that – just _why_ the fuck did stuff like this inevitably happen to her? Couldn't the universe find a different spittoon?

Oh. Of course not. She was Holly-bloody-Potter after all.

A soft growl ripped from her throat as her general irritation with the current situation – namely being dumped in the middle of a forest with trees that could make Grawp pout with envy – overpowered her and she used a fist to rub her temple, taking some further large breaths in an obviously doomed attempt to control the urge to release her inner-arsonist.

With her luck, the trees would be sentient – well, either that or whatever people that lived around would probably not be very chuffed at finding a few hundred miles of forest go up in smoke.

Ergo, it would be a Bad Idea.

It didn't stop her from mentally sizing up the tree and calculating how fast she could light it on fire and guessing how long it would take to burn down something taller than a full-blooded giant.

It was with great reluctance that she pulled her gaze away from the tree and set about carefully stretching out her muscles, first in her arms and then moving on to her legs – whatever that portal-magic-thingy was, the ride was worse than a portkey-apparation-floo-trip while at the same time worrying about at which point you left your right hand behind.

She would know, and it was not a pleasant experience.

Understatement of the century right there.

She stretched her back out, hearing satisfying cracks before moving down to touch her toes, finally able to move without the risk of tumbling back to the ground.

Holly sighed before reluctantly checking something that she had been desperately trying to ignore up until this point, hoping that if she just pretended it didn't happen that reality would decide to get in line.

But of course that was a feeble hope, one doomed to be proven wrong and stupid and a fool's dream… which it was, as she reached into her super-awesome-disillusioned wand-holster only to pull out what was roughly a third of her wand.

The other two-thirds were still stuck in the not-so-helpful wand-thingy.

She just stared at it, wondering if reality missed the memo or something crazy and evil had put a curse on her that had turned her into some kind of black-hole for misfortune or something. She weakly waved the piece a little, but all she got was a few depressed sparks that dissipated almost immediately and a squeak that for some reason reminded her of something a character in one of Dudley's computer games would issue when it died.

Holly stared at it a little wide-eyed, and her expression could be explained as nothing other than 'weird' as the message that yes, the wand was broken, and no, it didn't look fixable refused to connect with her brain. As if in a dream, she dropped the piece negligently and fumbled to take off the aforementioned wand-holster before tipping it, causing the last two pieces to fall out. She caught them easily and resisted the urge to cry over a piece of broken wood (something that was curiously hard to do) and proceeded to throw away the holster before testing the pieces, one after the other.

The reactions were just as disappointing as the first, which reached her brain in an abstract way – the wand was in three pieces, yes, and now none of them would work. She spotted the glittering golden phoenix-feather hanging out of the middle piece and pulled it out before tossing aside the pieces of wand as so many useless tree-parts.

Her hand was trembling now, she noticed distantly, and made her last wack at having a method of getting access to all that magical education locked up in her brain by waving the feather around.

Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero.

Fuck.

She abruptly sat down, resting the palms of her hands against her eyelids and taking deep breaths (for about the fifth time in as many minutes) and a hysterical laugh bubbled out of her throat.

Of course, in all the Death Eater attacks and all the battles and general impossible situations she had gotten out of without breaking her wand, it _would_ break because of something as stupid as falling over and cracking it on a rock – or tree-piece – almost the second she ended up in a situation that made it impossible to get something to replace said wand – namely trapped in a hostile environment with no idea about landmarks to apparate to. No. Magic.

Well, at least no _helpful_ magic – funnily enough, there were exactly three things she could do in her newly wandless state: the animagus transformation, apparation and start fires.

…None of which the least bit helpful in her present situation.

Oh, but if she had had a freaking _flying_ animagus, now _that_ would have been good in a pinch. Holly had always found it ironic in a petulant way that Hermione – the only one of their Trio that hated flying – was also the only winged animagus; an owl. Of course, they had all snickered over Ron's Weasley-red weasel (it was just too good to pass up), and although she had learnt to love being an ocelot, her Spook just wasn't all that helpful in this situation.

One last moment spent bemoaning her fucked-up luck and life in general, she sucked it up so-to-speak and glanced speculatively at the (useless) subtly glowing golden feather that was threaded through her fingers. It wasn't very large – roughly the size of her pinky finger – and it looked as fresh as if she had just plucked it off Fawkes (which is liable to make him quite angry in an 'I'll fire-flash you over the Great Lake and leave you to the Giant Squid' kind of way) and it was really smooth under her probing fingers – a strange cross between velvet and silk. She was hesitant to throw it away like she had the wood, if only for the sentimental value – after all, her wand had saved her life multiple times over the past six years that she'd known about the wizarding world and been left to fend for herself.

In a spur of the moment decision, she reached under her shirt and pulled out the long and thin dark-brown leather cord that carried a small silver Celtic-styled stag pendant hanging off it and was reinforced by about two-dozen protection spells along with a small set of runes that Hermione had carved into it for her. She worked on it for a second, attaching the feather into the knotted cord that made sure the stag didn't slide around and made use of the sticking-spells already there by just inserting it in there and then pulling on it for a second to test if it was secure – when it didn't fall out, she nodded to herself in satisfaction. That would do it; at least until she got annoyed with it and moved it or she found a better place.

Finished with that, she tucked the cord back under her top before casting her gaze around – and suddenly remembering why she'd been distracting herself with such silly things like not wanting to lose all of her wand.

Let's recap shall we?

Ok, she'd foolishly taken the first inter-dimensional portal outta there with little-to-no planning. She was stuck in a forest with big-ass trees up the wazoo and she'd promptly gotten her wand broken – which meant no magical solutions for her, also the fact that she was now unsure if she'd be able to defend herself properly if some bad-dudes came along. Oh, and lets not forget the original problem of being REVERTED TO A PREPUBESCENT! Dammit, she was shrimp, she doubted her ability to walk all the way out of the forest (especially with no directions) and she hadn't packed all that much food (or any money to speak of really).

The only good thing was that she hadn't lost the charmed bottomless backpack which meant she at least had some basic rations, water, clothes and other such necessities to last her at least about a week. She was just extremely lucky that she hadn't been carrying shrunken luggage because without her wand, it would have been reduced to very realistic doll accessories; in other words, useless.

Thank the gods that, at least, didn't happen.

Holly sighed, stood up and slung the bag over her back.

She considered the benefits and pit-falls of walking as a human versus walking as an ocelot, and decided to change into Spook if only to make travel faster and be able to smell if there were any people around somewhere to maybe track down civilisation (or whatever passed for civilisation in this place). And then she realised that she was yet again procrastinating so quickly shifted before picking a direction at random and trotting off into the forest.

If there was one thing she'd learnt from her life, it was that you had to help yourself and not rely on others – it kept you self-sufficient and generally alive.

**«×φ×»**

Gold-and-black ears twitched in annoyance.

She never caught a fucking break.

Ever.

It _had_ to be a law of the universe. Somewhere. She wouldn't be surprised if they'd conveniently forgotten to send her the memo about it.

If it wasn't the stupid forest, or the really scary bugs, or the sharp-toothed fish in that murky river a few days back; it was sore paws, muddy fur, over-exposure to sun… well, the list just kept going on and on.

Days and _days_ of walking through the big, scary forest.

And really nothing to show for it except the bug-bites, aching legs, lack of sleep and the ever-present knowledge that when she ran out of human food, she'd have to start hunting and eating as an ocelot as well as travelling.

Killing and eating birds, mice, rabbits, snakes… yuck. Even if as an ocelot they'd taste good and they'd be nutritious, she would get nightmares from remembering eating mice when she shifted back into human. It had happened before (much to her chagrin), particularly in the first few weeks of being an animagus and not quite having good control over her form.

People had taken to watching her carefully around their pets. Of course, Hermione had practically migrated to the owlery, so her problem wasn't _too_ bad in the end. Ron had tricked her into mailing his letters for almost a month before she could get her feathery-half under control. And she was _not_ amused once she managed it. Ron had been found in a cage with a running wheel in the kitchens where the house elves were taking good care of their very first and very beloved kitchen-weasel.

As these experiences might indicate, being an animagus was so _much _more than just changing shape and having four legs. Your mind kind of 'merged' with your more animalistic side, or you at least became more aware of it while enhancing it – and if you don't find the proper balance between 'human' and 'animal' well… there was a reason not many people risked an animagus transformation. Even as a human she got animal urges, and people had commented on her similarity to a cat many a time.

But yeah… _memories_. The down-side to a different palate when an animal. Yuck.

So, yeah – she would way prefer to avoid eating mice and the other critters in the forest, which meant getting _out_ of said forest. But she hadn't even smelt anything _resembling_ human since jumping into the portal. She was travelling by night and sleeping by day, mostly because Spook was nocturnal and by extension she liked the night better – it was also better to be alert when all things that go 'bump' in the night were out and hunting, rather than being snuck up on while sleeping.

But gods… all this walking and tenseness and general 'oh crap how will I survive?' stuff was getting to her. Which was probably why, when she heard very-soft footfalls – ones that she would never have been able to hear had she not been an animagus – she made a very stupid mistake.

…If 'mistake' was truly the word to describe it. Holly felt that it would be more fitting to call it a 'monumental cock-up' and leave it at that.

So yes, she was probably half-delusional and delirious. Yes, she was just plain sick of walking around without a clue of what she was doing. And yes, she was still a little bit more than a little miffed about being prepubescent.

But _none_ of those things was any _real_ excuse as to why all proper sense and logic abandoned her in that moment.

She changed from Spook back into her proper (although currently midget-y) form.

Yeah, she still cringed even thinking about it. Of course, that didn't hurt as much as the remembered pain.

She often wondered exactly what her expression must have looked like to her attacker in the moment she realised something sharp and decidedly pointy was hurtling towards her at dizzying speeds.

Of course, she didn't really care after that, because the thing was sticking out of the hand she'd raised on reflex (just gotta love those Seeker reflexes, eh?) pointy-end down. Of course, since it blocked the thing from hitting her throat, and she was going through shock and thus unable to feel what would likely be an extremely painful injury (she could see the tip sticking out the back of her hand, which disturbed her on a whole new level she wasn't sure she could appreciate) she really couldn't complain.

Of course, the next thing she remembered is something that felt like the equivalent of the full force of a charging hippogriff slam into her left side, which sent her crashing heavily into a tree a few metres away.

From there on was a blissful and whole-heartedly welcomed black cloud that settled about her thoughts, dragging her into unconsciousness until she knew no more.

It was a mercy, in the end.

**«×φ×»**

_Disclaimer: the originals are not mine._

_I hope people enjoy this – I'm writing this primarily for my own enjoyment, and wasn't gonna post it, but I figured that if I like it then maybe someone else would find it interesting._

_Enjoy, skyflyte12_


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Attacker

**«×φ×»**

Holly didn't so much as _rise_ to consciousness as get _jolted_ abruptly into it. The transition from 'asleep' to 'not' was anything but gentle, not to mention more than a bit painful.

Oh, and there was a lot of pain.

Her entire back, left side and right hand were a mass of dully throbbing pain, but other than that she seemed fine. And alive. Alive was good.

Although alive and with no freaking idea where she was… not so good.

She was experienced in pain, however, and waking up in a different location than where she had been knocked out was also not a new experience (no matter how much she would prefer it to be).

She tried to keep her breathing even and steady, feigning sleep and buying time to get a read on the environment.

The room didn't smell of disinfectant and other hospital stuff in the over-bearing way of a proper hospital room, so that ruled out official care. It also smelled more than a bit like the forest she'd been traversing for the past week or so, meaning she was probably in a house in the forest, ergo nowhere near any kind of help had she been captured by some kind of hermit-psychopath that made a habit of dissecting poor lost souls for fun.

Happy thought there.

The almost-good thing was that there was only one scent in the room, so at least it was even odds should it come to some kind of battle or whatever.

Holly shifted a little and the distinct feeling of bandages restricting her chest and down her arm made her feel a little optimistic – maybe she'd been taken in and healed by someone who saved her stupid ass from whatever had attacked her?

Hey, it could happen.

…Even so, she wasn't quite sure if she was referring to the possibility of being saved from her attacker or herself being anything approaching optimistic.

It was decidedly the former, she acknowledged privately not even a second later. She just wasn't the optimistic sort. Nor was she all-that pessimistic, though; she preferred the term 'realist'. It was just realistic to expect the weirdest shit to happen to her – there was precedence, after all.

She was rudely broken out of her thoughts by a voice that was worryingly close to her form – if she had to guess, she'd say hovering over her face. Creepy.

Of course, she might just find it creepy because she had no idea what in the hell the voice was saying.

Language barriers sucked.

Fortunately, she _did_ understand the warm tone and could deduce from that that the person was at least in the '_probably _won't try to kill me' category as opposed to the 'definitely' will. Not that she really trusted this first assessment – she'd had a good lot of problems from 'first-impression' judgements.

There was also something… off about the old woman with a twinkle in her eye that looked nothing like the one that used to inhabit a certain Headmaster's. It made her feel… uncomfortable. Kinda like when she was staring down the barrel of a crate full of blast-ended skrewts.

But she could ignore that for now, mostly because it was a terrifying thought and not encouraging to her continued wellbeing… especially since she was in absolutely no position to even be _thinking_ about escaping the current situation.

Actually, going on how terrible her body currently felt, she'd guess it would take a few days to be on her feet again, and _that_ would be attributed to her magic's inherent ability to speed up healing. Unfortunately, that only kicked in when she was properly sleeping, and there was also the depressing fact that she had no control over it what-so-ever.

Banishing the kind of petulant annoyance that came from her own magic's reluctance to heal her, Holly turned her thoughts to examining the old woman before her. She didn't look like much on the surface; the woman had thick white hair tied back in a bun, a rounded, bronzed and wrinkled face, thin arms that were liberally covered in spots and freckles, a scarf around her neck and practical shirt and pants – she was also pretty tiny. The woman didn't, however, exude the same aura as she had experienced around most senior citizens – there was a certain 'air' about her that said she was a no-nonsense kind of person, and that she was a threat and extremely capable of defending and taking care of herself. The woman also stood straight, and didn't appear to be suffering any problems with brittle bones that would strike other women of her age.

All in all, the only reason Holly wasn't attempting to stumble idiotically out of bed to make a wild (and probably doomed) attempt at escape was because she had a bad feeling this woman wouldn't be amused at escape attempts. She wasn't really sure it was of the 'I-will-care-for-my-patient-no-matter-what-they-think' variety or the alternate 'you-are-my-prisoner' option. She crossed her fingers and hoped for the former, although she really had no idea because of the aforementioned language barrier.

It was at this point the woman's brows drew together and she spoke the same thing again, but with an underlying edge to her tone that left no doubt that she was expecting some kind of response.

Holly drew in a breath to come clean about having no bloody idea what the other was saying, but was cut off by her own hacking coughs.

Her mouth felt like it had had cotton wool stuffed half-way down her oesophagus and that trace-elements were still stuck in there from the crappy removal job.

The woman above her quickly scooped up a glass filled with some liquid – Holly was hoping that it was only water – before using a hand to lift her up a little so she could properly tip the contents down her throat.

Holly swallowed it up greedily, enjoying the soothing effect it had on her poor throat before feeling herself being lowered back onto the bed. A wave of exhaustion swept over her, and she was uncertain if the water was drugged or if it was just natural fatigue that gripped her.

Either way, her eyelids felt heavy and she slipped into a more natural sleep, forgetting temporarily the problems that she had been experiencing since the portal fiasco.

**«×φ×»**

She felt a bit more human when next consciousness hit.

Judging by the sounds coming from outside and how dark the room was, she easily deduced that it was night this time.

Which suited her just fine.

Steeling herself, she pushed past what the aches and spiking pain around her ribs told her and slid out of the bed, thankful that it was one of those floor-height things… a 'futon' she thought it was called.

She clenched her left hand in a fist – the one that _didn't _have a hole in it – and gritted her teeth before pulling herself to her feet. It hurt. When she was standing, she paused for a second and delved into more of the advanced hearing she got from Spook and just barely restrained a sigh of relief from hearing the deep and steady breathing that came from somewhere quite close to her room.

But first things first.

Magic was a nifty little thing. Especially when regarding important items, and the ability to protect and track said items. And you didn't even need a wand after the initial linking spell.

She had pierced her ears after her fifteenth birthday, but not really in a fit of teenage rebellion or just for the hell of it – it had been strictly practical; what with how she just seemed to have trouble holding on to any of her belongings for any amount of time. There was a set of sleepers, and then a set of studs in the lobes of her ear, along with a single band of metal about a centimetre in width that settled along the rim of her ear. They were not especially noticeable and spelled against being forcibly removed – exactly what she'd needed. They were all made of silver, the studs containing obsidian centres – in other words, optimal for magical conductivity.

She smirked a little, congratulating herself for the sheer stroke of genius that led to the idea, and moved her hand to finger the stud on her left ear, which hummed when she activated it by applying the proper amount of pressure and it immediately nudged her to move to a previously unnoticed set of shelves in a corner of the room.

She slid it open, and lo-and-behold, her bag of awesome was right there! Of course, she was studiously ignoring the lock that she'd had to pick to get into said location (thankyou Gred and Forge), but she didn't really like having her belongings withheld.

As quietly as possible, she zipped open the main part and focused on what she needed and waited a beat as an object resembling an innocuous small red bouncy-ball flew out and into her hand. Gotta love those spells that made it _possible_ to sort through the junk that tended to accumulate when you had a bottomless bag.

Now was the tricky part.

She was limping now, and leaning against the wall to remain upright, but if she was going to get an idea on what she'd just crashed into, she _needed_ to do this. Failure was not an option.

The floorboards in the hall didn't creak, but it didn't stop her from avoiding the doorway, taking an excessively tall step to clear it – hell, she was paranoid, but if she'd read the woman that could possibly be her saviour or jailer correctly, there was no doubt there would be precautions for if she had woken up in the middle of the night.

Something about the old woman carried a decided air of almost Moody-level paranoia – and hell, Holly would have it as well while taking a beaten up stranger into her house where she lived alone; when you thought about it, it was really just common sense to have some kind of security measure just in case the person you had so selflessly helped became a threat.

A half-minute later saw Holly studiously ignoring the little voice in the back of her head that plainly pointed out that hovering near the doorway of the sleeping woman and calculating the proper projection for hitting her target was only something that a 'threat' would do.

Praying for her aim not to fail her, she threw the small ball at the sleeping woman.

When the ball was not even a meter from her, the woman's eyes snapped open (scaring the begeezus out of Holly in the process) and she shot up in bed, a hand whipping up to catch the projectile.

Now, this struck Holly as the overreaction of the century (along with being amazingly impressed that she apparently could detect stuff coming at her while deeply asleep at the same time) and she was deliriously happy that she'd gone with the paranoid-version of her plan. No doubt had she tried to get within ten-paces of the woman her mission would be shot-down and foiled, leaving her with awkward questions to answer. But this was not the case.

That was no normal bouncy ball. It was courtesy of the twins Weasley (like all her good stuff was) and designed to get one out of sticky situations. It wasn't main-stream stuff because of its sheer effectiveness and would be highly dangerous had they found their way into the hands of any of the Dark Tosser's band of Merry Munchers during the war.

Throw them against any object? They'd be indistinguishable to a regular bouncy ball.

Throw them against Skin?

It only took another split second for the ball to hit the hand that had risen automatically in defence of more vital areas. Once it did, however, it seemed to _melt_ into the intercepting palm before disappearing, as if it hadn't even existed. The woman's eyes rolled up and her body slumped back against the mattress, breathing almost instantly settling back into a deep and steady rhythm that indicated deep sleep.

Holly had a hand on her chest, steeling herself after the fright before nervously crossing the doorway and limping over to the bed.

She wasn't worried about the woman's health, or even feeling particularly guilty of employing decidedly underhand tricks to gain some proper information – the ball only forced a natural sleep, ensured to last two hours and even left the victim feeling more rejuvenated than natural sleep should once it wore off. The Weasley's had used it to prank the teacher's rooms with impunity – one hit had Snape sleeping like a baby while they wrote graffiti on his wall and raided the potion stocks.

She needed to do this, so she steeled herself for it and reached over the woman, carefully prying open one eyelid and whispering "_Legilimens_".

Mind Arts were a tricky thing.

She remembered clearly what Snape had said so long ago about the mind not being a book to be opened at will and examined at leisure. It was kind of hard to forget it, especially considering how immediately afterwards the greasy bat had forced a heavy-handed legilimency probe into her mind, splitting apart whatever defences she'd had naturally like a warm knife through butter.

Using legilimency is easier when you catch the target off-guard, relaxed, or otherwise vulnerable and the emotional state of the victim has the benefit of bringing relevant memories to surface.

That's the first thing she'd been told by the Auror – Emanuel Baxter – that had tutored her (on the sly) in the technique.

Some people needed to say the words, others needed their wands, and those who were particularly good at it can always tell when people are lying to them, even without eye contact.

Up until now, the extent of using it for her had been during the extensive training, and afterwards it was a split between Death Eaters and cracking into Voldiemold's mind via the link.

She had also never done it wandlessly, nor on a mundane person. Which was why she had voiced the spell, and why she had used up the last of the Twin's ingenious sleeper-balls before attempting it, even before she'd known of the woman's unnatural ability to know when snuck up on.

She slipped seamlessly into the woman's unconscious psych, and allowed the probe to drift away from thoughts and into what she had taken to calling the 'base level' of the mind. This was where you saw a person's mindscape, and you could access deeper thoughts and ideas than had she been scanning surface thoughts.

Holly felt a little bit safer seeing that it was in the form of a relatively peaceful glade, with sunlight filtering through surrounding trees. It was actually the most organised mind she'd yet to see on someone who wasn't an occlumens, which actually made it all the easier to avoid personal thoughts and go straight to what she was looking for – language.

'Learning' language via memory transfer of legilimency worked by creating corresponding neural pathways in the receiver's brain that copy those of the target. Millions upon millions of connections forged forcefully in the space of seconds… well, it was said to hurt like a bitch. Not to mention it would place undue stress on the brain, and then the magic would filter down to muscles and manipulate vocal cords so they can make the sounds that your brain can now understand. Add to that reading comprehension and working the proper muscles in the hand… well, Holly fully expected to suffer the mother of all migraines, after she actually was able to regain consciousness.

If she was a betting girl, she'd put money on this thing knocking her out for a week at minimum… or a month if she didn't do it perfectly.

But it was her only option as far as being able to fully operate in this world – she didn't want to be stumbling around for months on end and ignorant to everything going on around her, which meant knowing the language and being able to communicate effectively.

The woman hadn't killed her yet, so it was highly likely she'd at least be left to wake up and explain herself… if she was lucky.

In the end and with a bit of luck, she'd be capable of speaking, reading and writing the new language on top of English.

It would probably take the information sixty-three hours to properly assimilate itself when she put a filter on it, and she could put a delay on when it actually started – just enough time to put everything back where it was before and collapse back on her bed. The Weasley-ball still had an hour and thirty minutes left, so if she made any noise it wouldn't cause the woman undue alarm – she'd just have to hope she'd stop screaming or whatever before the forced-sleep wore off.

She hesitated for a moment before snatching the relevant memories, twisting on the proper limits and quickly retreating from the woman's mind, being _extremely_ careful not to touch anything or move something not meant to be trifled with.

Emerald eyes snapped open and Holly practically leapt to her feet and fled the room, a frantic edge to her usual cat-like movements as she clumsily retreated back into the room she'd woken up in. With fumbling movements she locked her bag away in its original spot before crawling on trembling legs to the futon, distantly relieved it was so easy to get in.

Three, two, one…

A ragged scream ripped from her abused throat and her world was consumed with pain.

Holly couldn't help but question the sanity of her actions in a remote part of her brain.

**«×φ×»**

'_Why can't I put some kind of limiter on how much time I'm allowed to spend unconscious in any given month?'_ Were the red-head's groggy thoughts as soon as she found herself capable of having them once again.

Her fingers twitched and she winced at the unnatural pulling feeling she associated with her right hand – no doubt a remnant from the recent hole cut through it – and she could now feel a damp cloth lying on her forehead, which seemed to have a soothing effect on it. No doubt a problem because of her latest idiotic stunt.

Her lips twisted into a grimace as she remembered _exactly_ how stupid she'd been just as an epic migraine announced its arrival. Now that she could look back on it, Holly was frankly shocked that she'd managed to keep her brain intact after such a stupid stunt. Yes, she thought sarcastically, it _may not_ have been the brightest idea to attempt such a complicated and delicate feat of magic _for the first time_ while hopped up on pain-relieving drugs and the after-effects of being heavily injured just before.

"Ah, so you're awake now, are you?"

It took a few moments for Holly to realise that yes, there was a voice, and no, she had never heard the voice before. She cracked an eye open (inordinately annoyed at the crusty stuff that tried to undermine this feat) and found that everything was fuzzy, reminding her of times long past when she'd needed glasses to be able to see anything properly.

She blinked a bit, and the blobby thing that seemed to be hovering over her ominously came into sharp relief, evolving into the old woman she'd hijacked a language from last time she'd been capable of coherent thought. She opened her mouth to calmly inform her that she'd appreciate a drink to extract all the cotton from her throat but all that came out was a kind of strangled gurgle.

The woman's eyes narrowed a bit but she seemed to see the merit in her guest being able to respond to interrogation, and so reached to pick something up that was out of Holly's line of sight before moving to hold it to her lips, tipping it back and allowing it to sooth her parched throat.

"Now." The glass was set down with a clink. "You will tell me what you are doing in this forest."

Holly's green eyes were wide as she stared up at the ferocious visage of the old lady and resisted the urge to 'eep' while her thoughts ran at a hundred miles per hour. "Um… err… well… you see… Aww dammit." She cursed.

She blinked up at the Scary Lady and tried, "I don't suppose you'd believe instantaneous materialization, would you?"

The old lady snorted at her in an I-don't-take-shit voice, shooting down Holly's attempt of telling the truth, and nothin' but the truth. Ironic, that.

A gusty sigh issued from the girl in the bed as she slumped down and said, "Well, my theory is that the universe hates me, and thus likes to force these things upon my person."

One delicate white eyebrow rose on the face that otherwise may as well have been carved out of stone, for all the expression it held.

Holly donned her patented I-didn't-do-anything-why-do-you-think-I've-done-something look and forged ahead, nodding as if she had gotten a verbal response, "Uh-ha yup, pretty crazy there. Do you know that forest is really large?" she asked rhetorically, "well, I just happened to have been dumped in there by nefarious means and persons unknown, and didn't know the direction _out_, so I'd been wandering around in there for _ages_ when I finally thought I heard footsteps, but it turned out to be some kind of weird animal that throws pointy objects and that bashed me into a tree and I swear I haven't burnt anything and thank-you for saving me and I-"

"You're babbling." The Crazy Lady deadpanned.

"Heh heh heh… please don't kill me?" Holly battered her eyes and did her best approximation of an adorable puppy-dog look.

The Crazy Lady let out a drawn out sigh, shaking her head and muttering something under her breath about 'kid's these days' before she spoke directly to the girl in her house, "So, to qualify you are…?"

"Here." Holly pointed out unhelpfully.

Crazy Lady seemed to think it was not worth the effort to roll her eyes and merely continued on, "And you are _here_ because…?"

"…of a very bad group of people." Holly continued, seemingly oblivious to the twitching under the Crazy Lady's left eye.

"And you think you were attacked…?"

Holly nodded, "Yup, by the weird animal thing that threw pointy objects!"

The woman used her hands to run at her temples before looking accusingly down at the girl, "You have no sense of self-preservation, do you?"

Holly affected an offended disposition and said, "I'd like to inform you that I have _very_ good self-preservation instincts!"

The woman stared at the small red-head, letting her eyes linger on the bandages (that just happened to cover about three-quarters of her body) and her prostrated state before saying, in a voice that adults use on their children to be condescending, "Of _course_. And that's why you are here, in my house, cut up and generally horribly wounded having been unconscious for the past ten days. You also seem to have no idea _what_ you are talking to, do you?"

"Eh?"

Holly must have looked terribly confused, for the Crazy Lady seemed to derive some amusement from the expression on her face as she said in a bewildered tone to herself, "Huh, you really _do_ have no idea to whom you are speaking, don't you?"

Holly just raised an eyebrow, a nonplussed look on her face.

The woman drew herself up and announced with a flair that ruined the generally foreboding air that had permeated the room previously; "I! I am Tanaka Shiori, retired kunoichi of the Leaf, sensei of the famous Tsunade of the Sannin in medical jutsu! One of the oldest ninja alive to this day! Hermit of the Kyokan Forest!" Of course, accompanying these grand words were large hand gestures, throwing the poor Potter for a loop.

The woman gazed avidly at Holly's face, seemingly expecting her to know something about whatever titles she had just spouted off. Holly decided to start with the first thing saying a little helplessly, "…Kunoichi?"

Crazy Lady's eyes practically dropped out of her head, and after a moment she surged forward, shoving Holly roughly back down. Her hands were doing a weird green-glowing thing but Holly decided not to comment on it. The woman was muttering under her breath, and with a bit of help from Spook Holly caught, "Head _looks_ ok… high pressure on the frontal lobe… oh, _that _shouldn't be like that… possibly memory loss?" She continued mumbling, but Holly was quite offended. Crazy Lady thought she had amnesia because she didn't know whatever the hell a _kunoichi _was? Or maybe she was so full of herself that not knowing of the woman set her off?

"Hey!" She protested, attempting to swat at the hands ghosting across her forehead with the one hand available to her, "I _do not_ have memory loss!"

"Yeah, sure, I'd believe that, but your brain seems to have been really battered lately – I've never seen something like this to this extent before… it seems like it has really been put through the ringer in a very short amount of time."

The woman – Shiori, she reminded herself – did _something_ to her forehead that actually seemed to sooth her pounding migraine (a pesky after effect of being an idiot) and Holly couldn't bring herself to protest again.

"Wait a second!" The woman pointed a finger accusingly so close to Holly's face it made her go cross-eyed, "You didn't by chance use a large amount of _kage bushin _recently, did you? 'Cause if you're just one of those young idiot-ninja running around with no idea on the _proper_ way to use jutsu, then I ain't helping you one bit!"

Still cross-eyed, Holly just resulted to attempting to have any idea what the freaking Crazy Lady was going on about, "…Kage bushin? Ninja? I'm sorry obaasan, but you'll have to get off the sauce before I have any clue what you're talking about."

The old woman's eye-tick made reappearance, and her eyes narrowed dangerously as she seemed to examine the girl for any untruths in her countenance. A few moments later the woman nodded victoriously and pronounced her diagnosis, "Amnesia then. You're lucky girl, ya know that?!"

Holly blinked at the woman's shift of mood, "Huh?"

The Crazy Lady nodded, "Yup. You see, I don't like intruders in my neck of the woods."

"Eh?"

"Uh-ha. Had you not have as good instincts and reflexes as you do… well, you'd be dead." The woman said it like she was talking about the expected weather tomorrow.

"Wha?" Holly, as one would imagine, was quite alarmed.

"Oh yes." The woman nodded cheerfully, moving over to check the bandages covering her right hand, "You caught me quite off-guard. I have no idea how you got so bloody close! No one's gotten so far past my perimeter in _ages_ – thought you were a shinobi on a hit! But _you_ – I mean, wow! I haven't seen anyone without training have those kind of reflexes… well, ever. Eh, I guess you kinda botched it with allowing the kunai to sink into your hand, but we can't all be perfect. Hmm, with a bit of training…"

During all this chatting, the woman had moved from examining the hand, which had healed skin that was an angry red where the pointy object had hit, over to her ribs and finally down her leg. She had removed and re-dressed two particularly nasty jagged pink-spots that seemed to be leaking something (that Holly decided was a figment of her imagination) and lastly brushed her hands together, nodding to herself.

"Wait a second." The tone was dark, and emerald eyes stared accusingly up at Crazy Lady who was now looking a tad bit uncomfortable. "YOU HIT ME WITH A POINTY OBJECT AND THREW ME INTO A TREE?! THAT WAS _YOU_ THAT ATTACKED ME?!" Holly shrieked, pissed that the lady that she'd come to decide was nice, kind and above all _not_ likely to _try to kill her_ had actually been the one _responsible_ for her current sorry-state.

"Ah ha-ha ha… well, it _was _dark…"

"NO EXCUSE!"

"…And I am a little on the old-side."

"Hah! More like _ancient_!"

"…And it's hardly _my_ fault if I'm a wanted woman."

"Psh, '_not my fault'_ she says."

"…And you _really_ ought to have stayed away from my house, girl!"

"Oh yeah, how the hell would _I_ know I was near _your_ house, obaasan?"

"…And it's not like there was any lasting harm done!"

"Oh, if you call me being _unconscious_ for freaking _ten days_ 'no lasting harm'!" Of course, Holly conveniently forgot her own role in her role in her own predicament.

"…and I even patched you up myself!"

"Grrr – it's _just as well_ you patched me up you Crazy Old Hag! _YOU WERE THE REASON I WAS HURT IN THE FIRST PLACE!"_

"…So, no harm done!"

Holly swore that her face was red with suppressed rage (which did no good at all for her appearance, what with the fire red-hair and all) and she settled for scowling ferociously at the woman in her best approximation of the Snape Glare o' Doom peppered with touches of McGonagall's 'Oh-no-you-didn't!' Scowl. It seemed to not even deter the old woman, who was looking quite pleased with her own rendition of events.

Holly settled for mumbling curses under her breath interspersed with descriptions of what she would do the _second_ she was capable of walking around (and committing homicide).

Tanaka Shiori, or 'Crazy Lady' as Holly would forever dub her in the safety of her own mind, took that moment to pretend the conversation never happened and proceeded to do the thing every person trained in medicine did when faced with a patient: fling questions about their physical state.

"Does it hurt when I do this?"

"…Ow! Yes, dammit!"

"How bout here?"

"…Kuso! Don't _poke _that!"

"And here?"

"…Grrr. You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?" Holly was summarily ignored.

"Hmm, you seem to be suffering from malnutrition."

"…I am NOT short!"

Crazy Lady snickered at that, and continued examining a very grumpy witch for the next half hour, making sure to get a thorough idea of what was healing properly and what wasn't.

It was only when Crazy's brows crinkled and she looked worried that Holly found the need to ask any questions. "Ok, what's wrong with me, doc? Will I live?"

The last sentence was a rather poor attempt at a joke, but most of Holly's idea of a joke revolved around decidedly morbid humour – what with having a freaking Dark Lord and Death Sentence (admittedly referred to as 'Prophesy' in some circles) hanging over her head before she could fully control her motor skills, it was no wonder.

The Crazy Lady looked at her with wide eyes and in the cliché 'you look like you've seen a ghost' way that people tend to comment on because someone has gone a ghastly shade of white for no particular reason at all. Holly restrained herself (just barely, and only then because such jokes just lost any substance when you have to hear it so many times a day through magical education) "…So?"

"You're not alive."

Not particularly the thing you want to hear from someone supposedly skilled in medicine, even _if_ they seemed to employ the use of 'glowing green hands' to do it – which, by the way, she hadn't forgotten, just ignored because she figured it was not hurting her and she couldn't be bothered to demand for some kind of explanation… hell, the most times she'd been in an emergency wing, she'd been treated by a person wielding a _stick_ as a primary instrument.

"You _can't _bealive."

Holly pouted as the trained professional felt the need to feel her pulse. What was it about her and people just _assuming_ she should be dead?

Dammit, the whole _avada kedavra _thing coulda happened to any one… maybe. And all those 'near death' experiences… well, they were _near_ death, not _dead_… except for that one time when she really _did_ die; that was dead. But she _wasn't _dead, and she didn't have the first clue as to why Crazy Lady _believed_ she should be dead (apart from the whole 'I-tried-to-kill-you-on-accident-sorry-I'll-just-fix-you-up-now-shall-I?' thing) because Crazy Lady had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA of her history with Death.

"_How-the-hell-are-you-alive?!"_

The poor woman was close to hyperventilating now, and Holly was a little disconcerted at the continued oh-shit-I'm-seeing-a-ghost stare that had been directed at her for approximately the last minute or so. Not to mention she was worried the old hag might have a heart attack soon if that look wasn't wiped off her face.

"Oh Kami!!"

Holly sighed in a put-upon way and raised her left hand before slapping the panicky woman across the face.

Heh, she'd always wanted to do that.

"Okay." She said calmly, having successfully attracted the woman's attention, "You will tell me right now why I should be dead, ok? And if you need to, I'll even let you check my pulse again, hmm?"

Crazy Lady took a deep ragged breath and slumped down, her fingers almost unwillingly trailing down to rest on Holly's pulse once again, and her expression was strange as she felt it under her fingers. The apparent reason Holly should be dead came tumbling out of the woman's mouth not long after that, "You have the worst chakra system I've ever seen."

Holly pursed her lips, not really getting what 'chakra' was, let alone why it should have been the cause of her Imminent Doom.

The old woman caught the completely lost look on Holly's face and shook her head, muttering something unpleasant about amnesia sufferers before saying slowly and with small words, "_Chakra_ is what allows us to be alive."

Seeing that the bewildered look on her victim/patient's face had not changed, she decided extra detail was needed. "_Chakra_ is a mix of spiritual and physical energy that is in every living thing. There _has_ to be a balance, otherwise one would totally overpower the other, resulting in _death_."

"So? Sure, that's a nice piece of trivia, but how does that help me right _now_?" Holly butted in.

Old lady Tanaka's face pulled into the slightly constipated look of a person who had had their view of the world systematically destroyed in the space of ten minutes. "So? SO?!" Her voice got high and semi-hysterical, but she managed to calm it down a bit and continue, "_So_ have you ever heard of yin and yang? The Circle? Balance?! If one should overpower the other, there is _none_! One _cannot_ exist without the other! It would not be possible! It _should not_ be possible! You have _far too much_ spiritual energy, and _far too little_ physical energy!"

Holly raised an eyebrow, still not seeing why the woman was panicking so extensively.

The old woman slumped, putting a hand to her forehead and using it to softly hit herself, probably in the hopes that she'd wake up the next day and have all this be a very disturbing and realistic dream.

"So _you_, my little idiotic home-invader ("Hey!" Holly objected quietly) should not have even survived your _birth_! It has been documented that any child with such a significant chakra imbalance as you, are _always_ still-births. Life cannot be sustained like that – with one, there must be the other! Kami!" And then the woman went on to produce such a vulgar string of words that Holly was ridiculously impressed at her own good choice of a language-donor.

Oh. Well, didn't that just sound peachy. She'd apparently played devil's advocate with Death in the womb. Before she was even freakin' _born_ yet. Hey, she could be petulant about this latest revelation if she wanted to be.

The old woman jumped up and started pacing, agitatedly running a hand through her hair and muttering to herself, managing to look quite deranged. She stopped after a few circuits from wall-to-wall and snapped her fingers, focusing on the wide-eyed girl on the bed, "Parents?"

Holly, by some divine intervention, _got_ what Crazy Woman was asking and replied, "Dead when I was one."

The woman nodded as if this was to be expected, before continuing to pace furiously. "…Anything odd ever happen around you?"

_Oh, other than avoiding death on a semi-regular basis, being able to do magic when my freaking wand isn't broken, and flying on a broomstick to participate in a popular sport?_

Holly thought about her options for all of a few seconds before saying, "Er, does being able to change into a cat count as odd?"

Holly decided that the completely gobsmacked expression on Crazy Lady's face was worth taking the chance of being crucified. She snickered. After all, wasn't that woman the one with the glowing-green healing hands? And anyway, it was soo much more comfortable sleeping as Spook… being able to curl up anywhere, having fur and fitting into a tiny space where your crazy fans couldn't hope to find you…

Crazy Lady's voice broke through Holly's adoring monologue on the benefits of being an ocelot – "…-ur parents. So if that is the case, this can all be put down to a crazy Blood Limit of some sought." The woman was nodding to herself in satisfaction, apparently having solved the dilemma of her collapsing world view.

"…Blood Limit?" Holly tried, wondering if she even _wanted_ to know.

There was a smirk on the old woman's face now and she airily replied with a wave of her hand, "Oh, you know – Blood Limit, Kekkei Genkai – a technique inherited by blood. Means either one or both of your parents had it and you inherited it. If the animal transformation is some kind of advanced form of it, then their chakra imbalance probably would have never been picked up because it takes a very skilled medic to check things like that and only if the person is very still."

Huh. Holly's view on the wizarding world admittedly changed quite a bit after that explanation. If you went by what purebloods said, 'magic' comes from the blood. And hell, she imagined enough squibs would have been abandoned in the normal world to find each other and produce magical babies, meaning so-called 'muggleborns' appearing. She decided to completely ignore that niggling thought of trying to guess _just how closely_ everyone in the wizarding world was related to _all_ carry this gene. The rate of inbreeding alone… egads, she'd never look at a wizard the same way again.

Holly was pulled back to the room, watching bemusedly as Crazy Lady had ripped out a notebook and was currently scribbling in it furiously.

"Er, whatcha doin?" She asked carefully.

"Recording a medical miracle" was the distracted answer.

Having known Hermione, Holly recognised the sight of an Intellectual Woman on a Mission, and left it at that. As long as the lady didn't try to turn her into a lab cat, she decided that she didn't want to know. The technical terms alone would no doubt be over her head, and she had no wish of reliving her migraine so soon.

She sighed and looked uninterestedly up at the ceiling, distracting herself with counting the holes in the white plaster. Her eyes trailed around to see the room, which she hadn't really bothered to note the décor and noticed the furniture was a dark wood, that the floorboards were light and the walls were a pale yellow colour. She could also see green foliage through the large window that was near her left side – the futon she was resting on was roughly in the middle against the wall furthest from the door. The cupboard she had broken into before her language correction stunt was backed against the right wall.

She drummed her fingers against the floor – only with her left hand, because her right was feeling very horrible right now. Gods, she had almost managed to forget how crappy being laid up with wounds was.

"I'm bored." She _wasn't_ whining. And whoever said so should get their ears checked.

"Suck it up."

"But I'm _bored._"

"Tough Luck. Look, kid… err hey, what's your name anyway?" Crazy Lady was blinking as if it had just occurred to her that she had not once received an answer to that question.

'_Oh shit'_ ran through Holly's mind in that moment. She'd _thought_ she had successfully dodged that bullet a while ago. The name 'Holly Potter' would be way out of place with this language – she didn't even think Crazy Lady would be able to pronounce it accurately.

She stared blankly up at the ceiling for a moment before saying lamely, "Err… amnesia?"

The woman gave her a droll stare that communicated just how much she believed that – even though _she_ was the one convinced Holly had amnesia in the first place – before turning back to her notebook and saying, "Okay, I'll call you Rei then."

Holly rolled her eyes when her brain supplied that one form of 'Rei' could be translated as 'ghost', 'spirit' or 'departed soul'. There were a few other translations, but she had a feeling these were probably what the woman had in mind. Was this whole 'yin and yang' crap so important?

"Rei it is" she murmured under her breath before allowing her head to drop back down on the pillow.

**«×φ×»**

_Disclaimer__ ('nuff said)_

_Okay. So… I got a hell of a surprise when I went into my inbox and found all these messages saying people put this story on favourite/alert. I seriously didn't really expect any kind of response cos I'm just having a bit of fun, but I guess some people enjoyed reading my wacked out ideas, so I decided I may as well post this chapter. I hope you guys enjoyed this, and I love reviews (hint hint nudge nudge) and whatever questions someone may have, I'd be happy to answer._

_Oh, and if you want to see what I had in mind for Holly's necklace, go to: http://www(dot)kultofathena(dot)com/images%5C200662_l(dot)jpg …(just fix up the spaces and change (dot) into a full stop and you should be right)_

_Later, skyflyte12_


	3. Chapter 3

The Offer

Chapter 3

**«×φ×»**

"GET BACK HERE GAKI!"

"YOU'LL NEVER CATCH ME ALIVE! I'LL SET MYSELF ON _FIRE_ BEFORE YOUUAAAG…!" The dramatic and desperate escape attempt was shot down quickly and efficiently, ending in a red-haired, green-eyed girl in the hands of the enemy – professional medical personnel.

Holly felt that those goodie-two-shoes with their 'You'll only make it worse!', 'Watch your stitches!' and 'It is physically _impossible_ for you in that state to go _anywhere_, let alone take care of yourself!' alarmist bullshit were forever fated to be her Mortal Enemy… well, besides Riddle, and Death Eaters, and the people she pisses off, and those vampires she ran into in York that one time… *ahem*, yes, her _Mortal Enemies _with their prodding and their _'this is for your own good' _righteous spiels! _Rawrr_, they wouldn't get their disinfected hands on _this _girl!!

Well, maybe they would – as was evidenced from the strong grip (was it just her, or was it unnatural for such a tiny old lady to be that damn strong?) from her most recent medical carer – who was actually _supposed_ to be retired.

"Why can't you stay in _one_ place, brat?" Crazy Lady asked in an exasperated voice that held a condescending edge.

"Because it's _boring_!"

"I don't _care_ if it's boring, I _care_ that you destroyed the _ropes_ that tied you to the bed! If you make _another_ attempt, you'll only end up _extending_ the time you have to stay in there!" The old Tanaka's voice was equal parts exasperated and annoyed.

Holly pouted silently and crossed her arms petulantly as she was bodily dragged by the collar of an old shirt that Crazy Lady had forced onto her (because of the damage suffered to her original) back to the Room of Doom – or Healing – whichever.

She _hated_ any kind of medicinal caring facility with the vehemence of a crate of a Blast-ended Skrewts, and enjoyed staying in one even less than she would like to position herself directly behind a twenty-foot version of the aforementioned creature.

"Hey! Be careful" Holly protested as she was manhandled into the bed and had the shirt pulled up to expose dark bruises across her ribs. Crazy Lady touched them, (making Holly flinch) seeming to derive some measure of satisfaction from this response (sadistic ama) and at length seemed to decide her latest stunt (Escape Attempt #32½) had not damaged the healing bones further.

Holly scowled. "This sucks! I've been in here for _three days_ with absolutely _nothing_ to do! I'll _die_ soon, I just know I will! And if I _don't_, I'm _going_ to set myself on fire so I can end my suffering!"

Crazy Lady was Not Amused. She hit Holly upside the head before saying "You WILL NOT, because I've gone to all this trouble to _fix you_, so I won't allow you to screw up all my hard work and tolerance of you through one stupid action! You will _stay here_, or I _will_ drug you!"

"I'll be good" was the reply, pitched a little too high to disguise the very real fear incited at the woman's tirade and threats.

The woman narrowed her electric blue (creepy!) eyes and scrutinised her makeshift patient for a moment before saying in a clipped voice, "See that you do."

**«×φ×»**

Later that night, Holly or 'Rei', as Crazy Lady kept calling her (not like she could be bothered to correct her, anyway) sat obediently at the table finishing off the disgustingly healthy meal the old lady had cooked and forced her to eat 'to help with the healing process'.

After a few minutes eating in silence, she just couldn't contain the question that had been bugging her for the last few days and it burst out loudly; "How are you able to move so fast and drag me around, baba?"

…and hey, she _could_ bad mouth the woman, no matter that she was the one who was healing her – after all, she was also the one who _hurt_ her in the first place! It was her _right_!

The woman snorted. "I am shinobi."

"But what does that _mean_?"

"It _means_, gaki, that I am trained to control my chakra to create jutsu and enhance my physical capabilities. We _shinobi_ – ninja – are the main military power of the Hidden Countries. Konohagakure no Sato, or the Village Hidden in the Leaves, is one of the five main powers and is in Hi no Kuni or the Land of Fire. Konoha also happens to be the village I used to be an active kunoichi for – 'kunoichi' meaning female ninja. Does _that_ put it in a way you can understand, chibi?"

"Don't call me chibi" Holly grumbled.

"Why the hell not? You're a runt! Why, you don't even look… err, how old did you say you were, anyway?"

"…it just occurs to you to ask me this _now_?!"

"Yare yare, didn't anybody ever tell you that it's not a good idea to be mean to your doctor? I mean, I _am_ responsible for your health, ya know. I could _forget_ to give you some… oh, say pain relieving drugs, or decide it is unsafe for you to eat chocolate, what with all the medication you're on…"

*Gasp* "you _wouldn't_!"

"Ha! Keep telling yourself that gaki. Now, age."

"…it's eleven." After all, no reason to get her _really_ confused by saying she _used_ to be seventeen but because of a freak accident while offing a megalomaniac she'd lost (or would it be gained?) approximately six years – coincidentally the exact amount of time she'd spent being the scapegoat of the Wizarding World (sexist much?).

The woman guffawed. Her loud, grating laughter was especially aggravating on Holly's already strained temper.

"Y-you (snicker) rr-real-ly aare a… a chibi!!"

"I AM NOT SHORT!" Holly squawked indignantly, shaking her fist at the horrible Crazy Lady that had a fetish for pointy objects and could apparently do a good impression of superwoman, even though she knew full and well that she _was_ a midget eleven year old. If she was lucky, she'd be able to eat more this time 'round and perhaps push past 5"2'.

Damn the freakin Dursleys and their food-withholding ways to Hell.

"Hah! You could pass for an eight-year-old at that height!"

- "SHUT UP BABA!"(1)

"NO, GAKI!"

- "HIBABA!"

"AHOU!"

- "MINIKUI!"

"BAKA!"

- "INOSHISHI!"

"ROBA!"

Simultaneously; **"AMA!"**

They were both red and panting, scowling furiously across the table at each other but for some reason Crazy Lady just burst into gleeful cackles, cutting off the insults.

Holly felt rather off-kilter. She'd lost her temper – _again_ – and gotten into a screaming match with the _only_ other human being she had met since arriving in this seemingly insane world that had super-powered _ninja_ running around and was quickly becoming quite embarrassed at herself, not to mention questioning her own sanity – Shiori-obaasan was currently the only thing standing between her being tossed back into the forest, and was the only way for her to get directions _out_ of the forest!

What couldhave _possessed _her to make such a stupid mistake? …There was just something _about_ the woman that was walking all over Holly's last nerve.

It was probably the 'ex-doctor' thing.

Damn.

Holly blinked as her ears seemed to have deceived her, "…WHAT did you just say, baba?" _'Dammit, there I went again…'_

The woman was wiping tears of mirth out of her eyes and grinning like a loon. She moved forwards and patted Holly heavily on the shoulder, laughter still in her voice; "Heh, I just said I like you, Rei-chan! You're the most entertaining thing to pass by my place in _ages_!"

Holly crossed her arms and grumbled, "Well, as long as _you're_ having fun…" she muttered sarcastically.

Shiori gave her a sunny smile, "Exactly, chibi, exactly."

Holly's scowl deepened and she sank awkwardly back into her seat, only just realising that she had vacated it in the heat of the argument because of the twinges of pain originating from her ribs and leg.

She sat in sullen silence as the old woman gathered up the dishes and went about washing them.

The old lady paused in her washing up, keeping her back to the young girl at the table and asked softly, "Where are you heading, gaki? Where will you go once you get out of the forest? What will you do?"

Holly paused, caught off-guard by the question and considered it. What would she do? She couldn't think of anything in particular off the top of her head. Probably travel around, explore this strange world – that would be interesting, at least. And find a way back – those two seemed like good long-term goals. After a few moments, she said, "Ah… I'm not exactly sure. I guess I just want to travel around, see the sights…"

Shiori waved a hand, "No no, that's not what I meant – how are you gonna eat? Where are you gonna sleep?"

Holly paused. "Er… I'm sure I'll think of something."

The old lady snorted, continuing to wash the dishes. "Sure, sure… but you don't know all the things that could happen to a young girl such as yourself alone in the world – what if you encounter bandits, ne? Or get captured and sold to slavers? Or you can't find a job? In my career, I've seen horrible things happen to children that don't have anyone to take care of them."

Holly felt uneasy – just what kind of world had she stumbled into? The false bravado could probably heard clearly in her voice as she said, "Ah, well. I'll be fine!"

Holly flinched a little as she caught the old woman's gaze as she turned her head around and glared, "Don't be stupid, chibi."

"Stupid, eh? Well, why do you even care?! I wouldn't even _be_ here right now if you hadn't attacked me!" Holly said defensively.

"You just don't get it! I'm a _retired_ shinobi, baka – my attack wasn't even deliberate, just an old reflex! There are _hundreds_ of shinobi out there, and a lot of them have no compunctions with killing civilians that get in their way – some even _enjoy_ it! I'm WORRIED about you, ahou."

Holly snorted disbelievingly; "You've only know me three weeks, tops! Why would you worry about me?! I've met a lot of adults, and-." She cut herself off abruptly. No need to say she trusted adults less than she would trust Buckbeak with a box of dead rats. "And anyway," she continued, ignoring the line she had been on before, "I have no idea how to even _begin_ using chakra, which sounds like the only way I'd have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving a confrontation with shinobi! If I have wacked-out chakra like you said, there's probably no way I _can_ learn to use it, _if_ I find someone willing to teach me – which would likely be very low, since the use is obviously restricted to official villages and it would be a poor trade secret if _everybody_ could use it!"

Holly was a mite bit frustrated over being told she was unable to protect herself – she'd gone through _hell_ to get about level with Voldie in a magical battle, and even then it had been large parts luck and sheer bull-headedness that had allowed her to come out on top. Holly had told been time and time again that she didn't know when to give up, but that had been the extra shove she'd needed to get the drop on Voldie in the end.

And now her wand was broken she was left with the last vestiges of the strength she had gained from all the blood, sweat and tears that had been shed to get into a position where she even had a _chance_ against an insanely stronger opponent, not to mention no substantial defence against attackers in this world. Sure, she could set an attacker on fire (although she found the smell of burning flesh distasteful), she could apparate when she knew where the hell she was aiming to end up and she could also use mind magics – which desperately needed practise if she wanted to make it a viable option for her defence. Other than those, she had whatever was in her bag and the charms on her earrings, none of which would be any help in a fight.

All of which spelt TROUBLE if she was liable to be attacked by shinobi along her journey, which seemed like a very real possibility through how readily Shiori-baba had brought it up. People didn't mention stuff when the possibility of it happening was negligent.

"What would you say if I was willing to teach you?"

Holly had been about to continue ranting, but the almost-soft voice (a tone that was unusual for the woman she had most often referred to as 'baba') stopped her in her tracks. Her eyes were wide and she stared at the old woman, who seemed almost embarrassed at what she'd said. "Wha?"

"-I mean, I'd just be doing it out of professional curiosity – is it possible to level out your physical and spiritual energies enough that you will be able to control and stabilise it? And hell, you will never be a medic-nin as is my specialty – I _may_ be able to get you using chakra, but you probably won't _ever_ balance it good enough to do finicky jutsu we medics achieve, and I mean… just _looking _at you gives me the same freaking feeling of watching a primed explosive note – that unbalanced chakra _can not_ be good for your health (or the health of everybody within 50 miles if you blow up some day) and you _do _have better than average reflexes, which _should_ make it easier to teach you…"

The old lady trailed off, seemingly aware that her rushed explanation had been dangerously close to babbling, and turned instead to meet the emerald green eyes which were wide in shock and disbelief. She added lamely, "…And since I went to _all the trouble_ of fixing you up, I can't waste my effort, gaki. So, waddya say?"

A hand ran through messy red hair as Holly tried to process the _extremely_ generous offer. "…But what about trade secrets? What about the catch? 'Cos no one does anything _truly _for free."

The woman waved her hand, dismissing the first statement, "Heh, I'm an _ex_-nin, I don't have to worry about direct repercussions and it's very unlikely they'd ever know I helped you out unless you told someone – which _you won't_, got it? And for the duration of your apprenticeship under me, you will live with me because the nearest town is two days away at _ninja speed_, most likely two weeks at civilian pace – normal pace, that is – and it's also not like I'll be teaching you proper shinobi codes or nothin'. The deal will be me teaching you how to use chakra and taijutsu (which I have a feeling will be needed if we're gonna get your physical energy up high enough to use). I'll also let you access whatever scrolls I've got in my house, you hear? That should be enough to get you out of being killed on accident, at least, and make me feel better about chucking you back into the forest. In exchange, I expect you to fix up my garden, cook, clean and do any other housework that comes up while you are boarding."

Holly took a moment to consider it, although there really was nothing to consider. She'd done all the work for the Dursley's, so how hard could it be to look after one old woman and her house? And if learning how to protect herself was the exchange, well… "Count me in."

Crazy Lady smirked in a vaguely evil way and apprehension curled in Holly's stomach.

What had she gotten herself into _now_?

**«×φ×»**

1) translations for the insults:

Rei- "SHUT UP BABA!" (old hag)

Tanaka- "NO, GAKI!" (brat)

R- "HIBABA!" (great-grandma)

T- "AHOU!" (moron)

R- "MINIKUI!" (ugly)

T- "BAKA!" (idiot)

R- "INOSHISHI!" (wild pig)

T- "ROBA!" (donkey)

Both- **"AMA!" **(bitch)

_=Chapter 3 complete=_

_Well, another chapter finished and hopefully fans satisfied and generally not willing to kill me for writing a crappy story. Oh, and if you have trouble with some Japanese words, just type them into google and you'll get an answer somewhere…_

_Review, pretty please with cookies on top :)_

_Ja, skyflyte12 _


	4. Chapter 4

=The Training=

Chapter 5

**«×φ×»**

"Concentrate."

An old lady and a girl occupied a clearing that was teeming with nature; bird calls could be heard filtering through the leaves of the enormous trees that sheltered them, rustling in the bushes denoted the movement of small animals foraging, and a soft wind flowed through, making the grass sway in the breeze.

"_Concentrate."_ The woman repeated, moving to the left three steps, circling the cross-legged girl that had her emerald green eyes squeezed shut.

The girl with fire-red hair took deep breaths, following the set instructions of her 'sensei', and tried to complete the task.

"Concentrate."

_*Snap_.* "HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO _CONCENTRATE_ WITH YOU YELLING IT AT ME?" She practically screamed in frustration. "OW! THAT F-ing Hurt, Crazy Lady!"

Holly Potter – or Rei no-name, as it may as well be now – cursed, rubbing her head where it stung from the solid rap delt to her via her slave driver/insane old sensei/prior medical carer/Crazy Lady via the wooden staff that the woman carried around.

"If ya didn't loose your temper so often, I wouldn't _hit_ you so often, gaki!" Old Lady Tanaka reminded exasperatedly. "And how many times do I have to tell you that it's _Shiori-sensei _when I'm teaching you! The title is _supposed_ to show me respect, gaki!"

Holly grumbled something under her breath concerning the _respect_ she felt due to the 'old hag' (or lack thereof) as she rubbed the twelfth red mark she'd received that session.

"What was that gaki?" _Shiori-sensei_ asked sharply, fixing the girl with a Stare.

"Nothing." She replied quickly, because she was _totally_ learning that there were certain lines that were better not to push past if she wanted to be able to get back up in the morning without a limp.

"That's what I thought." Crazy Lady replied, much too smugly for Holly's tastes. "Come on, get back to it."

Holly sighed and ceased rubbing the latest mark that was sure to bruise and settled back down on the grass, crossing her legs and shuffling around a little for a comfortable position before closing her eyes once more.

This was Shiori-baba's fourth approach to finding a way to balance Holly's chakra. So far, by what she could gather from the Crazy Lady's mutterings and explanations-in-technical-babble, each of the separate exercises had helped, but only to a point. _After_ that point, it stopped doing any good at all for the balance and just… stopped working. Her chakra balance was _supposed_ to be getting better, but Holly hadn't exactly gotten any real evidence of this… well, besides the fact that Crazy Lady seemed to be getting a tad less worried that if she hit Rei in the wrong way, her student would suddenly explode.

Well, that's what _Holly_ guessed was the reason that old lady Tanaka had been kinda jittery about doing anything _directly_ to her chakra system… something about if Tanaka made just a tiny mistake, it could result in 'game over'. And that sounded bad.

What Tanaka had her doing – meditating – was nothing new to the witch. After all, that was the basis for occlumency; gathering the will power and mental power to move stuff around and create barriers from outside forces that would seek to invade.

…Well, the official explanation for occlumency was a crap-load more complicated, but Holly wasn't exactly the type of person to get into semantics and explanations; if it worked, she did it.

The difference from _this_ meditating and _that_ meditating went right down to the basic principles. For occlumency, you meditate to draw inwards and examine your own mind. For chakra-balancing/control, Tanaka had her trying to expand awareness _outwards_ and use the 'energies in nature' as a guideline to follow or some stuff like that. What Holly pretty much understood it as was that Tanaka was saying 'look at all those animals, trees, and me – don't we fit in with the balance and world? And have a look at you – doesn't it look like you… don't?

"Okay okay, I guess that's enough for today." Old Lady Tanaka said, poking Holly out of her thoughts. "If you can't focus any more I guess we can call it quits. _But_ I expect you to do better tomorrow."

"Hai, sensei." Holly drawled, rising from the ground and dutifully following her make-shift 'sensei' back to the cottage that had become something of a home in the two months she'd spent smack dab in the middle of Kyokan Forest.

"Was there anything you wanted to do now that we're done, Rei?" Shiori idly asked as she pushed the door to her house open.

"Well, I don't know," Holly replied sarcastically, "do you have another list of chores for me to do today?"

The old woman turned her face away from the spit-fire redhead to hide her smirk. "Nope, can't say I can think of anything off the top of my head."

"In that case, I think I'll have look at your scrolls – there was that really interesting one about fuuinjutsu I saw a few days ago that I wanna take a look at."

Holly crossed the doorway and made a bee-line for the stairs in a bid for escape from the freaky slave-driving old woman that she'd struck up just about the bare-minimum of a camaraderie possible after spending so much time together. It wasn't that they hated each others guts… it was more like… well, the closest example that Holly could compare it with would be how the twins treat Ron – affectionately teasing. The insults they exchanged had lost their bite, and Holly appreciated the skills that her 'sensei' was pounding into her head, although preferred the taijutsu more than the stupid chakra-balancing sessions.

She'd even only set fire to the Crazy Lady _once_. Which, considering her track record, was nothing short of miraculous.

So even though Tanaka was old enough to be her grandmother and totally had one foot in the grave, Holly found she saw the woman as more of an annoying older sister than anything else. Well, that and a sadistic sensei.

"Oi! If you're looking for fuuinjutsu, just grab that book written by Abukara – you know, the one titled 'Seals for –"

"-Dummies', I _know_. And you suck!" Holly interrupted, shouting back down the stairs. "You don't have to be such a hag about it." She added, grumbling to herself.

"_What was that?_"

"Nothing, nothing." Holly quickly replied to the sharp yell before complaining to herself; "God, Shiori-baba _must _have sonic ears."

Holly paused on the landing for a second, just _waiting_ for yet another reprimand for her lack of proper apprentice-y behaviour. Upon finding that none was forthcoming, she entered the room full of scrolls and migrated over to the bookshelf wedged in the left corner which is where she _thought_ she'd seen the freaking book that Shiori-baba had mentioned.

"Yes!" She cheered upon finding it. Holly removed the book and checked over the dented cover with a sense of satisfaction – now all she had to do was have a look at it. Shiori had warned her about something about fuuinjutsu, bit she couldn't quite remember what the exact wording had been…

**«×φ×»**

"Your stance is still too sloppy." Shiroi-sensei criticised a few weeks later, "And you have to watch your left side more, or else you'll get killed." She added, demonstrating by throwing a punch and easily breaking through her student's defences so that 'Rei' ended up crashing to the ground.

Holly growled and slowly pulled herself to her feet, spitting a little blood out of her mouth as she did so, before falling into her improvised 'combat-ready' stance. "You can't freaking teach me like a _normal_ sensei, can you?"

"Normal? Ha! Rei-chan, you ain't normal in any sense of the word! 'Abnormal' may as well be your theme song, so I figure you'll learn this best by fighting it out." Old Lady Tanaka bent her legs into a crouch before charging at her student, being sure to telegraph her intended moves.

Holly's hands sprung up in a block, almost independently from any conscious thought, and her legs followed through, throwing a round-house kick at her attacker. "You…suck!"

Tanaka laughed, grabbing her student's leg in a bid to unbalance her. "You're a broken record, gaki! Come on, you can do better than this!"

Rei _twisted_ her body, throwing her left hand to the ground for a purchase before swinging her right leg as well, managing to kick Tanaka's shoulder and release her grip. She continued through, landing, and pounced forwards, aiming to slap the old woman's knees backwards to send her to the ground.

Tanaka dodged this, grabbing the hand and pulling the girl from the ground, flinging her bodily across the clearing.

Holly got right back up, something she'd learnt to do during their three-times-a-day 'sparring matches' that were the Tanaka's way of teaching her taijustu… that wasn't _actually_ formal taijutsu. It was best described as plain hand-to-hand combat – and the 'dirty' version as well, being that Rei had no formal training, period.

Tanaka apparently _only_ knew styles specific to Konoha, and according to the old woman, it was _not_ a good idea for 'Rei' to go out in the world using those styles because Konoha would wonder just how she had learnt them, leading to her capture, subsequent torture for information and, eventually, problems for Tanaka herself by way of anything from a slap on the wrist to execution for disobeying her contract of retirement. Apparently, the styles were a closely guarded secret, and there were ways of telling the difference between a person who had been formally taught them and a person who had improvised from what they'd seen while fighting.

Because of those reasons and more, it meant that the best way for Holly to learn taijutsu was for Crazy Lady to pretty much beat the shit out of her, only giving advice and teaching which places were the most effective to hit – like the kidneys – as well as those really dirty not-nice moves used in street fights and stuff. All this meant that Holly would not _ever_ have a formal way of fighting, but apparently that suited her anyway – Tanaka had said something about her having an 'instinct' for combat that was typical in blood limit offspring and left it at that.

On top of the physical combat, 'Shiori-sensei' had Holly up at the crack of dawn running, dodging, jumping, swimming, carrying, lifting… pretty much doing any kind of physical activity possible to 'increase the physical energies' because that was the part of chakra that she was lacking the most – apparently, she had way too much spirit energy, and way too little physical energy… or something like that. When she _wasn't_ in a lesson, exercising, or reading Tanaka's books and scrolls, she was bogged down with a list of chores to do to complete her side of the bargain.

Sigh. Holly didn't think she'd ever be able to go back to just lazing around like she had after the war for quite some time yet. Although she privately admitted that having such a frantic schedule to keep track of meant that she didn't have any time to worry about how she was going to go about finding a way to get back to England and her friends.

"That's enough, Rei!" Shiori-sensei called at the end of their session, looking quite pleased with herself. "You're doing a good job, chibi."

Holly's brow rose, "…Did you just compliment me?"

"…Yes. But don't you _dare_ go getting a big head ya hear? You've got a fair way ta go yet." The white-haired woman warned, brushing a few strands of hair out of her face. "Now, go clean!"

Holly was panting, sprawled out on the ground. She stared up at Crazy Lady's finger and let her head fall back on the ground. Staring up at the sky she said miserably, "I'm your slave, aren't I?"

Tanaka snorted, apparently finding amusement in her plight. "I believe the correct term is 'apprentice', but whichever."

Holly sighed explosively, and gathered the will to sit up.

That night they were both sitting around the rickety table once more, only this time eating something that Holly had cooked on her own, having been taught the dish and a few more besides by the old Tanaka after she figured out that the young girl had experience in cooking with different foods.

"So, how long do you think I have to go, Shiori-baba?" Holly asked, voicing a question that had been bothering her for a few weeks.

Electric blue eyes glanced at her over the table, seeming to judge her, before they dropped casually back to the food. "Well, it depends."

"On what?" The kunoichi-in-training asked confusedly.

"On you." Tanaka said exasperatedly, like she should have known the answer.

"…Huh?"

"Oh _please_." Tanaka rolled her eyes, "It's simple. Do _you_ think you're ready?"

Holly was going to ask just what the old woman meant, but then she caught her eyes. In them, she could see the horrors of the woman's past, ghosting just below the surface. She saw a life; one of sorrows, regrets, terrors, and fears. She saw her own eyes reflected back at her, mirroring those experiences. The real, unvoiced question came to her then – was she ready? Was she ready to go out and face the world again? She had been living roughly the past six months sheltered from all of those horrors, and the worries that came with making your own decisions, for being responsible for oneself in a world where nobody cared if you lived or died. Could she leave this safe haven, and go and forge a path of her own?

It was a tough decision, but Holly Potter had never been one to happily live in a constructed make-believe play of life being simple, or only encompassing one location. She thrived on making her own decisions, living her own life, and moving from place to place… she couldn't stay cooped up much longer like she had, even though she was honestly happy there.

"…I'm ready." She said, a note of determination colouring her words.

Tanaka sighed, leaning backwards on her chair thoughtfully and studying her apprentice. "I believe… that you are ready." She said slowly, nodding her head regally.

Holly went to say something, but Shiori held up a finger to silence her. "By my judgement, I believe you are roughly chuunin level in your taijutsu, which is quite an accomplishment. We have also managed to get it to the point that you are able to use your chakra to enhance your physical abilities – you are particularly good at making yourself move faster, I must admit."

Holly blushed under the unexpected praise, ducking her head.

"-Although," Tanaka added, frowning, "I do believe that I am going to ban you from picking up any weapon, period."

"Hey!" Holly protested, "I am totally… okay, so maybe I _am_ that bad, but I _can _use my daggers! I had them _before _I met you!"

Tanaka rolled her eyes, "Well I haven't _seen_ you using those daggers, have I? And you are absolutely _horrible_ with every other weapon that I have let you handle – you almost _broke_ _my_ _wakizashi_!"

"I said I was sorry for that!" Holly protested, shoving a finger in Crazy Lady's face, any lingering solemnity from the previous few minutes disappearing, "It was _not_ _my fault!_"

Tanaka rolled her eyes again (it really was becoming an alarmingly common habit), "Fine. Ignoring that, I have discovered that you have absolutely no aptitude what-so-ever for using jutsu."

"Ninjutsu, how I loath thee." Holly muttered under her breath, scowling at the thought of all the time she had wasted trying to perform _any_ form of chakra manipulation outside her body, only to discover that, because of the remaining disparity in chakra-balance between her and a regular person/thing/animal/living thing that she would never be capable of it.

"Yes yes." Tanaka said, waving a hand dismissively, "Build a bridge."

Holly pursed her lips and scowled.

Tanaka ignored that and tapped a finger to her lips thoughtfully, "Hmm, I think I have the perfect idea of what I can do for you as a last favour and to see if you're _really_ ready to go out in the big wide world."

Holly stared at the old woman's face, getting that vague feeling of a Not Good Thing approaching rather rapidly.

"You should do fine with the taijutsu and what you can do with your chakra – walking on walls/water, moving faster and stuff – after all, ninja don't need to be able to do the big, fancy flashy stuff; most of the time it's the really basic shit that can be deadly, and you've got that down. I _know_ you've been stuffing around with sealing – and no, I _do not_ want to know what the hell you were doing. Plus you've got your blood limit, which gives you a way to avoid pursuit and escape from sticky situations." Tanaka analysed.

Holly raised her brows – it _sounded_ like she knew a lot more than she _felt_ she did when Crazy Lady listed them like that.

"Perfect!" Old Lady Tanaka declared, crossing her arms and nodding happily to herself.

Ignoring the general gut feeling telling her that she really didn't want to know, Holly chipped in. "…What's perfect?"

Tanaka smiled. "We're going on a road trip, you and I."

**«×φ×»**

**A/N:** Hey! Ok, just a note about fast improvement ect: There is a BIG difference between this tutoring and the Official Shinobi Academy. There, the shinobi are introduced to the whole gambit - ninjutsu, genjutsu, stealth, battle techniques & tactics, history, all that 'social charmeleon' stuff, 'how to complete missions', and 'Konoha is the greatest village ever' ect ect... Holly IS NOT recieving ANY of this - it's been plain physical conditioning, with a bit of chakra use on the side. She can't perform jutsu, and Shiori isn't going to go on about Konoha's politics or background. Also, Holly is mentally much older than the children, so any knowledge read would be understood much easier than giving kids a kunai and saying they have to kill for the village - Holly hasn't learnt ANY of this, Shiori's priority and INTENTION was to teach her enough so she could RUN AWAY from a ninja battle, instead of die uselessly as collaterol damage. (plus we all want the story to go on...)


	5. Chapter 5

Konoha

Chapter 5

**«×φ×»**

"Okay, I have something that I need clarified." Holly – no, _Rei_ – said, just a little wary as she shot Crazy Lady a look.

The woman had the audacity to look at the young witch with a vague expression of surprise on her face, "Sure kiddo, ask away. Just be careful of using all those long words, yeah? You might sprain _something_."

Holly was silent for a beat, busy with her fast-paced walk she had adopted that was necessary to keep up with the fully grown woman, before the snide insult clicked "oh, screw you" she dodged the slap aimed at the back of her head before continuing "you said 'road trip'."

"Yup."

"And the place that we are going to is..."

"Konoha."

Holly deadpanned, staring at the white haired woman that was happily sauntering along, backpack bouncing with her gait.

Nope, Crazy Lady didn't get just how freaking contradictory the statement was.

Valiantly resisting the urge to pull her hair, or try to trip to woman, she took a deep breath. "The same 'Konoha' that _you_ _said_ would execute you for teaching me?"

"Oh yes." The woman smiled breezily.

"So, we are _road tripping_ to a place that will want to kill you outright, and torture me before killing me?"

"Yup, got it in one."

"... You're... there's a word for it, I know there is, but I don't think I know a harsh enough one to explain just how bad an idea this is. What the _hell_? Are you freaking stupid?"

"I'm _crazy_, not stupid." Shiori replied with a snap, apparently finally deciding to object to Rei's behaviour towards her person.

Holly snorted. "I can tell, Crazy Lady."

She didn't manage to avoid the slap this time, and rubbed her sore head while glaring at the woman. "What? You said it first!"

"Pshaw, you're 'sposed to deny that and say 'Oh, no you're not! You could never be crazy because you are Tanaka Shiori, the most brilliant medic-nin of your generation and the teacher of Tsunade of the Sannin! You could _never _be crazy, you _must _be embellishing!' and then I would say, 'well, you might think of me that way, but I'm really just your average awesome ninja, and there's the slightest of chances that I've gone off the deep end according to general surveys conducted that for some reason link the decline of sanity in a ninja with the elevation of their careers, and-"

Holly started laughing so much she stumbled over a rock on the road, drowning out the woman's involved narcissistic lecture.

Shiori looked at her 'cute' – decidedly un-cute at the moment though – 'apprentice' (after a fashion) and pouted until the girl's slightly hysterical laughter died down into giggling interspersed by hiccoughs.

Holly couldn't contain another snort upon seeing the expression, but endeavoured to bring up the important issue again "S-so... Ko-noha equals de-death? *snicker* Problem, right? What...?"

Shiori crossed her arms and started walking a little faster, vindictively enjoying the girl's trouble keeping up with her own pace as punishment. "Oh, I never said Konoha wanted to _kill _me."

Holly was Not. Amused. "Yes. You did." _Idiot_ was left unsaid but implied. She'd learnt her lesson not to push the rather unstable woman too far over her time staying with her.

"Nup, don't say I recall."

Holly clenched her fist, bit her lip and _willed_ herself not to accidentally set something on fire. "You. DID. Just before, you agreed that they would kill you! And torture me! I don't like being tortured! I'm not gonna go to be tortured."

The woman looked at her, raising an eyebrow. "I think you'll find that, ah, just about _no one_ likes being tortured, dear."

Holly tried really, _really_ hard to convey 'fuck you' with her eyes but hold her tongue at the same time. She didn't want to sabotage her IQ via the repeated hits to the back of her head – brain cells don't grow back! ...Well, at least she thought she remembered Hermione saying something like that one time. Shiori _really_ didn't like hearing vulgar words from her eleven-year-old appearing body, or at least the woman felt it was her duty to 'civilise' her. Since any type of explanation that she was already into her early twenties and had fought in a war was out of the question, she had to grin and bear it. Well, not grin, but you get the point.

Shiori had paused for a moment, and then smirked in victory as the time for her to voice the 'crude words not for civilised company' passed. She then cleared her throat; "As I was _saying_... I never said Konoha would kill me and torture you-" she waved her hand expansively, as if to swat a non-existent fly "- I actually just said they'd be well within their rights to do that had I taught you _village secrets_. Duh. Ninja." She waved at herself at 'ninja'.

Holly wanted to pick one of the trees that lined the road to bang her head against. She'd been hoping that leaving the old woman's house that had an unending amount of pending chores and such lying around would get rid of most of the woman's ticks that drove her to occasionally hate her. She'd been hoping that her own problem had originated from being couped up and separated from the outside world with only the old woman as company, and that was why they mostly bickered and clashed all the time.

Oh Merlin's hairy blue balls was she _wrong_. So, soo wrong.

Holly flexed her hands, momentary the feeling of longing for her wand multiplied to the power of a hundred thousand as she wished, just _wished_ that she had it so she could turn the old bitch into a toad, or so she could use that bat-bogey hex Ginny was so fond of on her _without_ consequences. Oh, if she had her wand she'd have been able to stun the woman, lock her movement, curse her then Obliviate the memory from her in succession, all before the woman could use her super-powers on her to counter her attack.

Holly paused. Hm. That was a rather extreme and _involved_ wish, quite mean in its conception. Okay, it definitely stemmed from the months of being physically taken apart by the woman in the bloody-minded goal of 'training'.

..._it was for my own good. For. My. Own. Good_._ Merlin do I wish I could forget that tiny little detail and be able to fantasise about cursing Crazy Lady_ _to hell and back without getting a guilty conscience. _

"Anyway-" Shiori continued, blessedly unaware of her apprentice's line of thought (or maybe aware of the general direction of them but very unconcerned with anything the little girl could possibly do) "so yeah, _ninja._ We don't like people knowing secrets they shouldn't know. _That's _why I'm taking you to Konoha! I'll introduce you to Saru, explain your situation and it'll all be right as rain. No problems, no miscommunication _and_, most importantly, you'll get an opportunity to meet proper shinobi your age. You know, Konoha's hosting a competition at the moment, so there's lots of people about!"

Something about that sounded rather foreboding to the 'young' witch.

**«×φ×»**

"That's... is that Konoha?" Holly asked, eyeing the foreboding wall in the distance. It was... _huge_. They had been walking through a forest – and Shiori wouldn't confirm one way or another if it was the _same_ forest her house was in or if they'd passed through a different one, though they hadn't passed through any towns on the way – and the tall, foreboding trees had been getting progressively more normal-sized (as far as Holly could estimate, anyway) and they'd just come to the very end of the tree-line. Ahead (very far ahead) was what would be a truly enormous gate and walls that ran as far as she could see in both directions.

"Yup, home-sweet-Konoha." Shiori practically crowed, delighted in watching Rei's face and changing expressions.

"It's... big." Holly replied finally, saving any kind of judgement for when they actually managed to properly arrive.

"Sure is" Shiori nodded "and now's the perfect time for you to remember the rules for being there with me."

"Rules?"

"Yes, rules – keep up, gaki." Shiori favoured her with one of her 'I'm-being-a-sensei' expressions, her voice turning more firm as she finally slipped back into the role of an adult. "In order to be in Konoha with me, I've got a few rules – you know, just stick to these and the chances of any of us being chucked in prison or interrogated will be quite small." The woman's smiled gained a rather mad edge, and she clapped her hands.

"Got that – good. So, rule one – listen to me. Two – do what I say. Three – don't talk to anybody that looks older than fifteen without me there. Four – repeat after me."

Shiori suddenly stopped, whirling around and pinning Holly with a look, pointing a finger in her face. "Ahem. I am not a shinobi."

Holly sighed. "I am not a shinobi."

"-I am not in training to be a shinobi."

"I am not in training to be a shinobi."

"-I will not use my chakra."

"I will not use my chakra. ...Unless I have to protect myself."

Shiori _glared_. "If I find myself in a situation that would require me to use chakra, I will run away."

"...If I find myself in a situation that would require me to use chakra, I will run away."

"-I am not going to set anything on fire."

Holly tried to keep herself from pouting. "...I am not going to set anything on fire."

"-Because even though 'Konoha' is the ninja village of Fire Country, they don't approve of the country literally being on fire."

"Because even though 'Konoha' is the ninja village of Fire Country, they don't approve of the country literally being on fire." She repeated.

"-I will not tell or show anybody, or even lead anybody to believe that I have a blood limit. I am not allowed to change into a cat."

"I will not tell or show anybody, or even lead anybody to believe that I have a blood limit. I am not allowed to change into a cat."

"-And lastly: I will do everything Shiori-sensei says, bowing to her greater knowledge and trusting her to pull my ass out of the fire. Not that the fire will be literal, for I am NOT ALLOWED to set anything on fire."

"...I will do everything Shiori-sensei says, bowing to her greater knowledge and trusting her to pull my ass out of the fire. Not that the fire will be literal, for I am not allowed to set anything on fire."

Shiori stared straight into Holly's eyes for a moment, gauging her ability to both remember and comply with the set rules. Apparently whatever she saw there was at least enough for the woman to sigh and continue along in their trek ever closer to the gates.

After a few minutes of silence Shiori looked back at the struggling young girl. "I mean it. I really do. You better obey those rules. Or we'll both be in deep shit."

Holly looked at the woman and for a moment felt a little bit of pity. She would _try_ to follow the rules, she certainly had no intention of going in there and disobeying consciously. She was allergic to torture. And death. ...Although, maybe the correct phrasing of that would be that Death is allergic to her?

After a long moment, she replied; "I'll definitely do my best, Shiori-baba."

**«×φ×»**


End file.
